


Mercy

by Konoto



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-22 11:50:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7437047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Konoto/pseuds/Konoto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People felt entitled to have their own opinion about Tony Stark, they either loved him or hated him, though more and more people seemed to tilt towards the later. The truth was that none of those people knew the real Tony, even those who had called themselves his friends, even those who had called themselves his family, had Steve had said in his half-assed apology of a letter, that didn’t matter, because at the end of the day all those people had left, at the end of the day Tony was alone with his own demons, and sometimes those demons had blue eyes with a little bit of green in them.</p><p>Full prompt inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clean slate

**Author's Note:**

> Based on my own prompt that got me writing cuz well, a little spark of inspiration.
> 
> Prompt: We all know that after the ‘war’, if something was to happen that had the world’s relative peace in danger, Tony would eventually be the one reaching out for the others; those who betrayed him and hurt him because he’s like that, he’s a self-sacrificing idiot that would willingly grovel and apologize even if it hadn’t been his fault, he’d stand the hatred looks, the cold shoulders and the harsh words, all for a greater good and what happened between them could be left for later. Tony knows his pride, as battered as it is and as much as people insist he’s a narcissistic, selfish prick, his nothing compared to innocent lives in danger.
> 
> The thing is that he barely can hold himself together; Tony’s exhausted, stressed, fading and almost reaching his breaking point. He cannot let the others see it, he didn’t want their pity or have them thinking he was weak, they hated him enough as it was. But he’s absolutely terrified of Steve, and it’s not any better when he sees Barnes, so he does everything he can not to be in the same room as any of them for longer than what’s necessary, much less alone, he kept his façade cold and professional, not looking at any of them and speaking only when it was truly necessary. And of course the team thinks he’s just being an asshole, not suspecting anything else for the whole mess in Siberia never came to light, they never knew Steve and Barnes were always in Tony’s nightmares, killing him, every single time. Maybe there’s a confrontation when the tension gets thick enough that eventually leads to the truth coming out, or for Tony to finally break down.

Things had gone from bad to worse and then sort of good for a brief moment before going even worse than before, and Tony took each blow like a champ, or so he made everyone believe. 

Tony couldn’t afford to back down and run away like many other cowards have –like certain star spangled assholes- because so many people depended on him and so many people wanted to see him break down and Tony wasn’t about to give them the pleasure, he’d prove them all wrong, even if his life went out like a candle in the process. Stark men didn’t cry, Stark men didn’t break, they stood proud and shiny like gold, even when they were about to succumb at any minute.

Tony wasn’t going to let anyone close enough to see that, not anymore, he had learnt that trust brought nothing good; he had cared and trusted so many people only to have them stabbing him in the back as soon as he turned around; Obie, Pepper, Steve and all the others. And it wasn’t like he was putting his trust in an vain cause, all those people had been people he had known, or so he had though, people who lied to his face while pretending to be his allies, his friends, his family. He had known Obie all his life, the man had helped him raise him, how could Tony ever suspect the man had planned his kidnapping and meant to have him killed, and when that didn’t work, he had practically tore Tony’s heart off his chest while Tony lied there, paralyzed; he still had nightmares about that. Tony had known Pepper for many years now and he understood perfectly how much of an ass he was to her for so long, how many burdens and stress he had put on her with his reckless behavior, and then Iron Man came along and it was just too much, but still Tony had never forgotten how she had been on his side while his weapons murdered millions of people, but the moment he decided to change, to try and correct his mistakes she left, she had left even when Tony had begged her not to leave, still trembling with fear after another night terror, Tony had almost lost her because of a mistake he had made so many years back, Tony had thought she had died when she fell, but Pepper hadn’t been able to accept Iron Man as a part of Tony that he’d never give up even when he had destroyed all his suits for her, so Tony thought breaking apart was the best option for the both of them; they were still friends but Tony still had nightmares about her falling.

The rest of the team had been his family, if a very odd, dysfunctional and brought together out of the need to save people, but it was still a family; Tony welcomed them into his home, hell, he made each one of them a floor specifically designed to their liking, he had founded them, given them constant updates and equipment out of his own money without receiving anything back, barely a mumbled ‘thanks’. None of them bothered to get to know him out of their own volition and many were content to stay with the first impression they had on him, on the Tony described by tabloids and reports that made him no justice and portrayed a reckless, eccentric, selfish, narcissistic asshole that only fought for himself when they couldn’t be farther from the truth. It was true he could be eccentric but that was the façade he put to protect himself. And how could people thing he was selfish when he gave so much? Whether it was money, support, equipment, he donated to thousands of charities, he gave away scholarships as if they were cookies and they told nothing about how selfless he was? And how could he be narcissistic when he hadn’t let anyone touch him ever since the incident in Afghanistan happened? He who was so distressed and repulsed by his own scars that he hadn’t let anyone, not even Pepper, touch him or see him without a shirt on, except Rhodey. Natasha had played double agent on him so many times, Clint had called him backstabber, Bruce had vanished out of sight but Tony was well aware whose side he would pick if he were there.

For some time Tony had allowed himself to foolishly believe there was some sort of bond starting to form between all of them, he had thought the endless teasing and casual joking meant something, that the very occasional movie nights had been out of everyone’s own volition to spend time together aside from kicking ass on the battlefield.

‘They only want you for the things you can give them’. Howard’s toxic words seemed to come in handy now, for everything seemed to point out to that painful truth. Tony wondered how many of those moments were real, how many of those people were playing double agents on him, for how long had they been lying to his face, Tony wondered how many of them knew the truth about Tony’s parents, how many of them were laughing at him when he turned his back.

They had acted as if Tony himself had written the accords, as if Tony himself had been the one putting them inside the raft, because it was so easy to point the finger and put the blame on others rather than yourself.

Then there was Steve, the epitome of perfection to many eyes; righteous, fit, holier-than-thou who thought he made no mistakes, that everything he did was right, the very same man who had scolded Tony for hiding and causing the whole Ultron mess when he himself had been lying to Tony’s face for years, and it hadn’t been something as simple as to not liking the color of the walls but the truth about the death of Tony’s parents. 

They hadn’t had the best of starts, right at each other’s throat but they synced in the battlefield like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. From the very first few minutes of meeting him, Steve had managed to hit a sensitive nerve within Tony, and maybe it as true, maybe he was nothing without the suit, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. And after the whole battle Tony had been so stupid to think that with that self-sacrificing act he had somehow changed Steve’s opinion of him, and perhaps he did for a short period of time, a period of time in which Tony felt fulfilled only to be hit by reality like a ton of bricks when Steve’s opinion of Tony was so easily swayed by Wanda, a child they have met for less than a day with a biased, misinformed, anger-lead opinion, something that should’ve never happened because Steve knew Tony, right? He knew him, he had to. Tony was only assured of that when the truth about Ultron came to light and all the team went against him –even when Tony hadn’t been the only one creating Ultron, Bruce had had a part in it too, but Tony didn’t throw his friend under the bus-, no one had moved a finger when Thor wrapped his hand around Tony’s throat and held him two feet in the air, no one had moved a finger to stop him and they never let him forget. That was the very moment Tony understood that no matter what he did he would never be able to change the way people looked at him.

To Tony, Steve was the biggest example of a double standard he had ever seen for the soldier claimed he desired to protect people but he didn’t want to make himself accountable for his mistakes, he claimed he was fighting for the freedom of people when he ignored the several countries -129 now- that demanded for the Avengers to be regulated, to make themselves responsible for the damages they’ve caused. Tony understood perfectly the fear other countries had, that a group of American super-powered, enhanced dudes going around the world ignoring borders and people’s rights and leaving destruction and death behind. Tony was tired of being hated and feared, those were one of the reasons why he signed the accords, and it was an attempt to correct his past mistakes. If things had stopped right there it wouldn’t have been too bad, sure they had their disagreements but Tony know they would work around them and come to a middle point; the accords weren’t fixed yet, they could be modified if only Steve and his ‘side’ agreed to come to terms and review the actual version to propose ways to improve it, if things had gone that way, but then Barnes had to appear.

The thing about Barnes wasn’t that he was an ex-assassin responsible of god knows how many assassinations through the last few decades, Tony knew that he couldn’t be held responsible for he was a victim of Hydra who had experimented on him, tortured him, brainwashed him into this killing machine who followed orders of whoever who said the right words. The thing about Barnes was that Steve lost all control and ability to reasonable thinking when it came to Barnes, thanks to that and Steve’s insistence of taking a trainee to the battlefield many lives had been lost in Lagos, and for that mistake all the team paid dearly. The thing about Barnes was that Steve hadn’t let go off him, he had never come to terms with the man’s supposed death, Steve had never stopped living in the past despite him reassuring Tony many times that he had given them all a home, that the Avengers were his family now, because the moment Barnes appeared on the map all had turned to shit. Steve left everything for Barnes, he had become reckless and selfish, risking the lives of millions of people for the sake of a single individual and wasn’t that supposed to be against the shit Steve had preached about at Tony so many times?

Tony couldn’t bring himself to hate the guy, hell, he barely knew him furthermore than all the historical information about him, and he wasn’t about to judge him based on that like many people had done to Tony himself. But he couldn’t help but hate the person Steve became thanks to his obsession to get his friend back; he had put worldwide peace at risk, he had become a criminal, he had dragged people with him, same people that had lost their families thanks to their decisions –and no matter how much Barton and Lang had tried to blame it on Tony, they were grown ass men that decided to go against the law-, Steve had torn the team apart despite Tony’s desperate efforts to keep them together, Steve had turned his back on him without a second thought.

But if there was something Tony would never forget nor forgive was the fact that Steve lied to him, Steve kept the murder of his parents secret from him and still had the nerve to call Tony out on his own mistakes, because of course, Captain America was better than everyone. Steve had got mad at Tony for hiding his knowledge about the accords, to which Tony provided the information right away, trying to make amends, he got mad the power of decision would be take away from them and somehow that didn’t apply to Steve, somehow Steve was a superior being to have the right to make decisions for others, to decide what was best for Tony, as if Tony were a mindless child who knew no better, acting in that condescending and patronizing way that made Tony’s blood boil with anger.

Things would’ve been so different if Steve would’ve just trusted him, if he had just approached Tony and explained everything, sure, Tony would’ve broken down and lashed out in anger but he would’ve had time to process everything, to come to terms with it, if Tony had only known before he would’ve even helped Steve to look for Barnes and help destroy Hydra once and for all to make them pay for all the crimes they had committed, instead Steve decided to hide information, to act as if Tony’s reaction had been out of place. Now that he thought about it, Tony accepted his actions had been wrong but his reaction wasn’t; he had had the right to be angry, he had just been betrayed for the very person Tony had given his trust to, the very person Tony had though was on his side, he had seen his parents die and it was like it had been them dying all over again, right in front of his eyes and not twenty something years ago.

Tony had never come to terms with his parents’ deaths. Sure Howard had been an asshole and a prick but even he hadn’t deserve to die like that, but Tony’s mom, Maria, had been the light of Tony’s life; for so many years she and Jarvis had been the only reasons Tony had had to stay alive, they had been the only reasons why he came back home on holidays risking to run into his father for whom Tony had never been anything but a failure, a creation because he had never earned the title of son in the eyes of the great Howard Stark. To his father the only one who matters was Captain America, Tony’s childhood hero and hated figure alike; later in life he found that Steve Rogers wasn’t as perfect as people claimed him to be, he was full of flaws but somehow people thought him worthier than Tony, and Tony had accepted a long time ago that maybe he would never be, but that was okay. But that day Tony had witnessed his parents’ death- his mother’s death and lashed out of anger; Barnes wasn’t guilty but neither was Tony.

He remembered every single second of the fight; his reasoning blinded by anger, Steve’s and Bucky’s coordinated attack against Tony, two super soldiers against one under-armored Iron Man, because Tony had fulfilled his promise to Sam to come in peace, to help find Zemo and bring him to justice only to be left alone, beaten, wounded, defeated and with a useless suit in the middle of a freezing abandoned Hydra base, to be accompanied only by his failure. But the image of Steve bringing down his shield on him would be forever tattooed in his mind, for a moment there he had truly believed Captain America, Steve, his supposed friend was going to end his life with a final strike. Tony was almost sure that if it wasn’t for T’Challa finding him he would’ve died there, and it scared the hell out of Tony how little he had cared about his own death right then.

Steve had shown him his dark side, sharp contrast between the man who firmly believed on protecting the innocent and team work, that there was nothing they couldn’t fight if they were together, the very same man who had kissed him and held him, and the same man Tony had looked up to and wanted to make him proud. Steve had shown him his dark side, and Tony was terrified of him.

But he came back, to an empty home, an absent team he had never really supposed to be part of, not to lament himself and start a pity party but to take into his responsibilities, to take the blame for all those who weren’t there; let the people blame him, because it’s so easy to blame Tony Stark, so Tony made no move to defend himself, taking all the harsh words, all the hatred stares and the cold shoulders, he went to every funeral of the people who had died as a consequence of all the mess they had created.

He was the only member of the Avengers –Rhodey was out of their reach due to his condition and Vision wasn’t quite human but gave his support- the people and the government could get a hold onto, therefore his phone never stopped ringing, his mail was always full to the brim, and if he wasn’t in meetings trying to change the accords for the better he was trying to recruit enhanced humans, which didn’t always welcome him but Tony tried and tried and tried. He tried to do better, he tried to help people as much as he could, he tried but sometimes his best wasn’t enough. Tony was already familiar with the feeling but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when people pointed out the little mistakes without even acknowledging his efforts, his achievements.

Tony could try and reach out for help, but there were so few people who could; Rhodey was too busy with his recovery and therapies and Toy wasn’t about to interfere with that, not when he hadn’t been able to protect his best friend so the best thing he could do was to help him get back on his feet; Vision was surely of great help, even if the android couldn’t fully grasp human interaction quite perfectly yet, Tony was relieved to have someone who had his back, even if that someone had sort of been created by him, so he wouldn’t have to face everything alone, but even then there were things Tony couldn’t delegate; then there was T’Challa, a great ally when it came to amending the accords, bringing in a different point of view and even if the now King of Wakanda had offered Tony his help, Tony knew the man had a country to rule and people to answer back to, among them a team of criminal refugees, so Tony couldn’t call every time he felt like pulling on his hair out of frustration, overwhelmed with everything and stressed out of his mind, he had fucked up, so he had to fix it.

It was only a matter of time for everything to start taking its toll on his health. Tony hadn’t tended his wounds properly, not allowing any doctor to assess his condition further than the cuts and bruises on his face and the pending concussion, he hadn’t let anyone see the massive bruising on his chest or the cracked ribs that were left there after Steve smashed his shield against it, instead he had thrown himself to work through exhaustion, not giving himself time to rest, to think, he had so much to do, so many things that needed his fully attention. Tony worked days on end barely eating, and only because Friday kept reminding him; he lost weight, he had bags under his eyes and his skin lost a bit of its healthy color but he achieved so many things; he was making the accords better, he was helping recruit and train the new superheroes, he had sent the blue prints and designs for Barnes’ new arm to T’Challa so they’d start constructing it, he was working and improving BARF to make it a viable cure for whatever Hydra brainwashing and mind control still remained on Steve’s dear friend’s brain aiming to successfully cure him and help him to have a new, better life.

Anyone who could see that would say that Tony was doing more than he should, that he had too much on his plate, anyone would tell him to take it easy, that he was trying his best and that was what mattered, but there wasn’t anyone there to tell him that, not that Tony would’ve believed them anyway.

“Boss, it’s been seventy two hours since the last you slept, maybe you should…”

It was true he had had trouble sleeping ever since Afghanistan, but now he avoided sleep like the plague, and only gave up to it when his body couldn’t handle it anymore, which usually meant taking catnaps here and there; on the couch, leaning precariously on one of the working tables in his lab, on the floor... But the nightmares were always looming in the back of his mind, waiting for him to get his guard down and torment him with visions of sand and water, the wormhole and now, of Steve. The soldier had been the new star of his night terrors. The dreams were slightly different each time but each time they ended the same way, with Tony dying and looking up at blue eyes as life faded from his own.

Now in his nightmares, the dark, cold cave would change into that abandoned Hydra bunker, the wormhole would open like a hallway and give room to that road he knew so well and he sometimes would find himself sitting on the back of that car with his parents, Obadiah’s face would transform into Steve’s, looking at him with cold eyes as he tore he arc reactor out of his chest, leaving him to die. But the pain felt too real, the shrapnel making its way to his heart was there and he could barely breathe, wide brown eyes looked at the man in front of him with fear, but he couldn’t move, he couldn’t…

“Boss!”

Friday’s voice brought him back to himself. He was in the middle of his lab and judging by the holograms near him, it was around 2:37am. 

“Honey… I need you to do me a favor” Tony could barely recognize his own voice.

“Sure, boss, what can I do for you?”

“Set a lock down, don’t tell anyone, and don’t let anyone in”

Tony removed the BARF glasses and set them on the nearest desk, as he felt the painful throb of the growing headache, he blinked several times, his eyes itchy with exhaustion and dry for he had been staring at nothing for several moments. The engineer looked around his lab up to the suits standing before him. One of them was the last one he had made along with an old armor from almost a year ago, and the last one was the armor he had brought back from Siberia. He hadn’t let anyone see or know the extent of the damage that was done to it; the left boot and gauntlet were useless, the right leg had been severely damaged, the paint was stripped on several parts, the helmet was a total loss, the back of the armor was dented from where debris had fallen on him, the paint around the neck was chipped from where Steve had thrown that line around it, but he stopped when his eyes fell on the chest. There were the dents Barnes’ metal fingers left when he had tried to tear the arc reactor off, and the other gash was deeper, longer, the gash left by Steve’s shield.

Tony walked forward until he was standing in front of it, he lifted his hand, the one who wasn’t in a sling, and let his fingers follow the gash that mirrored the bruise across his own chest. Tony was the, luckily not dead, proof of how far Steve was willing to go to protect Bucky. A sharp edge of twisted metal cut one of his fingertips but he paid no mind. He could still taste the blood in his mouth and feel the hollow in his chest as he saw Steve leave with Barnes.

“How come you stopped loving me?”

The words left his mouth in a whisper, before he scoffed and shook his head, a mirthless smile curving on his lips. Of course Steve had never loved him, they had had nothing but a few encounters and a few shared kisses that made Tony’s hear soar and hurt altogether.

He reached in, between twisted metal and the cracked reinforced crystal to take the remains of the reactor out. It took him a bit of effort, a few minutes and a little more of blood but he finally got the reactor and set it on the nearby desk, staining it slightly withdark red. It would serve as a reminder, to himself and others, that he had trusted and loved and lost and he had paid the highest price.

“Ready, Fri?”

“Ready when you are, boss”.

“Alright, baby, let’s blow everything up”.


	2. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, um, I'm leaving a tiny sneak peak, I won't be able to update anything for the rest of the month since I'm going on vacation starting today so I thought it was fair to tease you with a little something to ease the wait.  
> My sincere apologies and have a good day.  
> Also, thank you so much for the comments and support, the response to this has just been wow!

“My darling”.

The voice called Rhodey’s attention, one because it was too late for anyone to be awake in the compound, and two, there were no women in the compound at the moment, because the voice that had reached his ears had been clearly female, and what was worse, there was certain familiarity to it, as if he had heard it before but he couldn’t quite tell whom did it belonged to.

It made alarms go off in Rhodey’s head because those were dangerous times; the line that divided the relative peace and world chaos was taut and it seemed like it would snap at any minute. After the so called war, things had stilled into what it appeared to be the eye of the storm, the exact moment before everything took a turn for the worse. They were at the point in which one single step out of place, one single mistaken action would start a chain reaction.

And yes, it could get worse, so much worse, because no matter what everyone said and how things ended, no one had died. Sure there were relationships and friendships ruined, there were physical injuries, in his very own case very lasting damage, there was emotional trauma left behind, but no lives had been lost in between them, but with the Avengers dissolved and so very few of them still within reach and under the UN’s and the accords’ guidelines there was a high chance that they wouldn’t make it if an important threat to the world knocked on their doors. Rhodey was out of commission for the moment or at least until his therapy granted him full use of the legs Tony had designed for him, and even then he still had to relearn to control War Machine, T’Challa was a great ally but he had his hands full between serving as an ambassador and mediator for the accords and his duties as a King, which left Tony alone with Vision and a bunch of enhanced humans still in training that could pose as a liability rather than proper team mates, and knowing Tony, he’d rather do it all by himself than to risk unexperienced people, for if they got injured or died Tony would take it upon himself, adding the guilt to the already heavy weight he carried over his shoulders.

“Friday, who is here?” Rhodey called aloud as he made it to where the sound had come from, one of his guns in hand as he turned around the corner and out of the living room, eyes observant to any noise and any movement, senses alert to any possible threat that had, somehow, passed through Friday.

“Young Peter fell asleep in the studio, Vision is in his room and boss is currently in his lab, Colonel” Friday’s voice spoke with ease, she didn’t take a second too long without responding to his question, indicating there were no abnormalities.

And maybe Rhodey was starting to become just a little paranoid but with how things were at that very moment a little paranoia came in handy. Friday’s reassurance went to shit when he heard the voice again, this time much closer, humming a tune, setting his nerves on edge. Rhodey wasn’t the ones to believe in ghosts and all those ridiculous things, but hearing a female voice singing in the middle of the night when there wasn’t supposed to be any women well, it could spook anyone.

“Friday?”

“There is no one else, Colonel, my systems are functioning perfectly and the security system has not detected any breaches” the AI’s voice lacked a tone of apprehension she always had when things were bad.

“Is Tony up?”

“Yes, Colonel”.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr  
> http://konoto.tumblr.com/


End file.
